Give Me A Sign (I Wanna Believe)
by ardj18
Summary: They should have seen it. Sam, who was trained to spot the signs, should've seen it. Tony, who thought about it perhaps a bit too much to be healthy, should've seen it. Bruce, who'd actually tried, should've seen it. Someone should have seen it. But they hadn't. They couldn't even pin down what the first sign was. (Steve's not okay, and the cracks are beginning to show.) post TWS


Tony had never given much thought to what it was like in Steve's mind. It wasn't surprising; he was, after all, a textbook narcissist who had a tendency to be an insensitive asshole, so why would he bother trying to empathize with Capsicle? But when he had given it a passing thought, he'd decided Steve's brain must be made out of puppies, apple pie, truth, justice, and the American way, all tied together with rules and orders. Sure, the seventy year sleep had left him a little unbalanced, but he'd adjusted astonishingly well, picking up the new technology and culture quickly, offering genuine smiles and humorous quips.

So Tony felt pretty comfortable with his analysis of what exactly went on in Steve's mind.

Maybe he should have paid better attention.

They should have seen it. Sam, who was trained to spot the signs, should've seen it. Tony, who thought about it perhaps a bit too much to be healthy, should've seen it. Bruce, who'd actually tried, should've seen it. _Someone_ should have seen it. But they hadn't. They couldn't even pin down what the first sign was.

The first sign wasn't Sam, sitting in a hospital room, saying in a low voice, "I asked him, once, what made him happy. He said he didn't know."

The first sign wasn't Steve charging into the fight, clearly outnumbered and ignoring the cries that it was a suicide mission.

The first sign wasn't Steve turning off his commlink.

It was barely perceptible, that unsure flicker of Steve's mouth, but Tony saw it. Tony, who had faked thousands more smiles than he'd ever given sincerely, knew what it looked like to force a grin onto your face. But then the flicker was gone, replaced by that wholesome, genuine smile that he always wore.

Tony realized that maybe those smiles weren't so genuine after all.

The first sign wasn't Steve staring at Tony's drink with an odd look on his face, saying "I can't get drunk," almost mournfully.

The first sign wasn't Tony finally putting two and two together and realizing, the way he hadn't as a child, that the date Sergeant Barnes fell from a train and the date Captain Rogers crashed a plane into the ocean were only a day apart.

Tony would be the first to admit that he didn't really respect personal boundaries or privacy. Which was why he felt zero regret rifling through the drawers in Steve's bedroom, looking for the piece of tech Steve had confiscated earlier that day because Tony was messing with it during an official meeting.

When Tony pulled open the nightstand drawer, he was greeted with the sight of a loaded handgun. Which was a little strange, Tony thought, because the Tower was totally secure, so Steve wouldn't need to be worried about being attacked in his sleep. And even in such a scenario, Tony didn't really think it was Cap's style to pull a gun on an intruder. He'd probably go for his shield first, or throw a punch. So the reasons for Steve having a loaded gun in his nightstand eluded the genius. He was sure he could probably figure it out, given time, but oh look! There was the tech he was searching for.

The first sign wasn't finding Steve's sketchbooks in the trash.

The first sign wasn't the broken look on Steve's face when he returned from Peggy's funeral.

The first sign wasn't Steve looking up and visiting the children of the Howling Commandos, nor was it the pained way he stared at a photo one of them gave him of the Commandos mere days before that final raid.

The city was experiencing a crippling heat wave and Tony decided they should all fight the heat with a pool party. He bounced all the way down to Steve's floor to tell him, but stopped as soon as he stepped off the elevator. It felt like a freaking sauna.

"Jesus, Steve, what's up with your heat? As in, why the hell is it on?"

Steve looked at him blankly. "I was cold."

Tony realized that maybe Steve wasn't so healed as he'd thought.

The first sign wasn't Steve spending perhaps a bit too much time on the balcony, chair pulled close to the edge, presumably studying the changed skyline.

The first sign wasn't the dark circles that occasionally appeared under Steve's eyes despite the serum and the fact he hadn't been on a mission in a week.

The first sign wasn't Steve rushing from the room when a battle scene from a World War II movie started.

Tony idly flipped through the sketchbook Steve had left on the coffee table of the communal floor. He was fairly surprised at the skill and quality of the drawings. He'd known Steve liked to draw, but he hadn't expected him to be this good at it.

There were drawings of all of them: Tony, Bruce, Thor, Natasha, Clint, Sam, even Coulson and Hill and Fury had warranted portraits. And there were a lot of pictures of Bucky Barnes. Some of the drawings featured a young, handsome man with a smirk or a welcoming smile, but some of them featured a blank, world-wearied face and a metal arm.

But the worst were scenes from the war. Explosions and fights, men dead and dying, expressions of terror and hopelessness. The images were so realistic, so detailed that they couldn't have been invented. These weren't just speculation, these were memories.

Tony snapped the sketchbook shut, suddenly needing a drink.

The first sign wasn't Steve's blank stare as he clutched the note that had somehow appeared in his duffle bag, telling him to stop looking.

The first sign wasn't the terrifying rage with which Steve dismantled HYDRA bases, cold fury radiating from his very being and chilling everyone who saw it.

The first sign wasn't the wild goose chase Steve went on, searching for a ghost.

Steve was obviously in pain, limping slightly. However he'd been injured, the serum hadn't healed it yet. And just how he'd been injured was still a mystery, because the jerk hadn't reported any injuries at the debriefing earlier, despite glaring down every member of the team until they'd admitted to every stubbed toe they themselves had suffered.

Tony wondered inwardly how Steve reconciled this hypocrisy with his dedication to truth and justice and all that, and wondered whether this was the first time the captain had neglected to mention his own injuries. He doubted it.

And what bothered him most about that was just how good of an actor that meant the supposedly honest and wholesome captain really was.

The first sign wasn't Steve spending his recovery filling pages of his sketchbook with blank stares and metal arms.

The first sign wasn't Steve appearing on the bank of the Potomac nearly dead because he'd backed down from a fight for the first time in his life.

The first sign wasn't Steve giving the command to blow up the helicarrier before he'd even tried to get off.

Steve had been back from a two week long mission for nearly half an hour when the alarm went off and the Avengers were called out to deal with back-to-back attacks on the city that left them no time to rest for a solid 48 hours. When they finally made it back to the tower and Cap—Cap, who always, always debriefed and filled out a mission report before resting—nearly fell asleep at the kitchen counter, Sam suggested he take a few weeks off from saving the world and take some time to just be Steve Rogers.

Steve smiled and said he isn't quite sure who that is.

Tony was about to laugh when he caught the glint of sadness in Steve's eyes and realized just how horrible that statement really was.

Tony realized that there's a lot that wholesome smile can cover up and make seem okay.

The first sign wasn't Steve stealing his original uniform in an attempt to regain some piece of his past, whether in the form of fabric or friend.

The first sign wasn't Steve completely zoning out after seeing Bucky on the bridge, looking like the world had just been declared flat.

The first sign wasn't the way Steve stared around Camp Lehigh, looking completely lost, trapped in another time.

After the Battle of New York, as they'd dubbed it, the team stuck around for a few days, resting and tying up loose ends. They all crashed on a few relatively undamaged levels of Stark Tower, which gave Tony the idea of making them each their own floor when he rebuilds.

Tony convinced them all to have a cookout for the fourth of July, and they all agreed relatively easily. Steve is the one who puts up the most fight, but even he eventually agrees.

The party was fun, and Steve seemed to really enjoy it, joking and laughing and gratefully accepting all the birthday wishes given him. But when the fireworks started going off, Tony realized Steve had snuck away from the rest. He found the soldier sitting out on the edge of the balcony, staring into space with the most heartbreakingly lost expression on his face Tony had ever seen.

Every so often the sound of a firework made him jump in panic, and Tony realized that for him, it had only been a few weeks since he'd been in the middle of a war.

Tony quietly slipped back into the party, leaving Steve to his own thoughts.

The first sign wasn't Steve recklessly jumping out of windows and planes and off of buildings without a parachute and with only half a plan.

The first sign wasn't Steve showing up at a VA meeting, lingering around the edges and trying so hard not to think.

The first sign wasn't Steve wandering around the Captain America exhibit, standing in front of the section on Bucky Barnes for a solid half hour without realizing it.

Honestly, Tony had almost forgotten his scathing remark to the Captain that everything special about him came out of a bottle. It had been uttered in the heat of the moment, aggression fueled by Loki's scepter, and Tony had known, even as he said it, that it wasn't true.

So it was something of a shock when, nearly three years later, Steve brought it up again.

"I wonder if they chose the wrong person to be Captain America," Steve said pretty much out of the blue one day, startling Tony, who had just sat down next to him in front of the TV.

"What are you talking about? You _are _Captain America. I'm pretty sure the role was, like, specifically made for you or something."

Steve shook his head. "They could have picked anyone, given them the serum. It all came out of a bottle, after all."

The last part is said in the same deadpan tone as Steve's other sarcastic quips that had startled Tony into accepting that the guy had a sense of humor after all.

Tony wondered if maybe those quips weren't really meant to be humorous.

The first sign wasn't brushing off every one of Natasha's attempts to set Steve up with someone.

The first sign wasn't the way his smile became a little more strained each time he visited Peggy and she exclaimed over him being alive.

The first sign wasn't the way he left his apartment only for missions and runs.

The first sign wasn't how Steve didn't talk to anyone outside of SHIELD and the occasional phone call or text to the other Avengers.

Tony was used to feeling like an asshole. It happened on a nearly daily basis. So the feeling was familiar, if unwelcomed, when he met Natasha's glare across the room and realized he'd messed up.

It wasn't anything new: he'd been teasing Cap about modern technology. The thing was, Cap had actually picked up on the new technology pretty quickly. He was good at adapting and he was pretty intelligent. So he'd learned to work the basics—television, microwaves, internet, etc.—with relatively little help from anyone. Tony knew that, but he continued to tease him about it ("Think you can work the remote there, Gramps?") in what he'd thought was a good-natured way.

But as Tony felt Natasha's patented death-glare boring into his skull, he realized that he'd messed up big time. Usually Steve just laughed and shrugged it off, but this time he looked lost, though he seemed to be struggling to hide it.

Tony realized that Steve had taken the trouble to learn all about the new technology so he wouldn't feel so lost in this century. And Tony had gone and implied that Steve didn't understand, didn't belong.

After a few tense seconds too long, Steve mustered a smile and a laugh, but Tony already felt a heavy weight settling in his gut at the pained look he'd caught in Steve's eyes.

Tony realized that maybe Steve wasn't as well adjusted as he'd thought.

The first sign wasn't the way Steve surveyed the wreckage of New York like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

The first sign wasn't the resignation and pain buried in the phrase "This the first time you lost a soldier?"

Steve was a soldier. He was _the _soldier, Captain America himself. So Tony thought he was fine, that he was adjusting, when Steve threw himself back into everything, following orders from SHIELD and leading missions like he would have in the war.

Tony had thought that was what made Steve such a good leader: the fact that he was a good soldier. But then he noticed Steve would circumvent orders on missions if he thought there was a better call to be made. He would follow his gut instead of the rules.

One day Steve told Tony about Erskine, and his plea for Steve to remain who he was: not a perfect soldier, but a good man.

Steve took down SHIELD and suddenly there weren't people there to give the orders.

Tony realized that maybe rules and orders weren't all that important to Steve Rogers, who was, after all, not a perfect soldier. He also realized that maybe Steve had been clinging to those orders because being a soldier was something he remembered.

But now it was gone and Tony wished he could ignore just how lost Steve looked.

The first sign wasn't the chilling finality of "You should have left it in the ocean."

The first sign wasn't the sense that maybe he hadn't meant the Tesseract.

The first sign wasn't "They say that we won; they didn't say what we lost."

The first sign wasn't the pile of busted punching bags that accumulated after just an hour.

The first sign wasn't the fact that after seventy years asleep, Steve could barely stand to look at his bed.

Tony had heard about the grenade story from Peggy when he was younger. It was a story that had never really made it into the history books, but it was one Tony had always admired.

He thought of the story years later when Captain America himself lectured him about laying down on the wire and making the sacrifice play.

He thought about it again as he watched Steve Rogers charge into a situation that was ninety-six percent likely to be fatal, and wondered if selfless bravery had been the only motivating factor.

The first sign might have been "But I had a date."

The first sign might have been the terrified confusion on Steve's face when he first saw Times Square.

The first sign might have been the reluctance of his lungs to draw in air after seventy years without.

None of them saw the first sign. But all of them, gathered in concern around his bedside, saw the last.

The last sign was the disappointment on Steve's face when he woke up once more.


End file.
